


One Shining Thread

by SapphoIsBurning



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Insecurity, Knitting, POV Nia, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 20:36:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11859207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphoIsBurning/pseuds/SapphoIsBurning
Summary: Picture yourself making your Raw debut. Can you be the monster everyone expects you to be?





	One Shining Thread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Achika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achika/gifts).



July 25, 2016.

Picture yourself backstage. Picture the hustle and bustle of a giant operation like WWE putting on a show like it's the last one they'll ever do. Picture a grip nearly running you over with a rolling black case of equipment on wobbly casters. He apologizes and gets your name wrong. You press your back against a wall and catch your breath.

Your tights are riding up. They're new. You don't tell anyone that your mom made all your old gear but she's a German grandma with a surger and she'll sew the hell out of some spandex. These new ones are professional and...tight. Really tight. This is how they're supposed to fit, they told you. Okay. Sure. You do some lunges. Nothing rips. Everything's fine. You snag a bottle of water but you're not sure if you're supposed to drink it or pour it over your head.

You're full of bees. And fog. A horrible swirling mass of nerves and confusion, and you have to go out in front of a crowd of thousands and lift another person over your head. You're supposed to be this great big monster. Monsters aren't afraid of anything. Monsters run out and crush fools, drop them hard, toss them aside like a bag of trash, and sneer defiantly at the crowd. They aren't nervous.

Your hands are shaking enough that you spill some water on yourself. Cool, cool, no problem, just get a towel. You wander around and find a stack of white fluffy shop towels by the makeup area and ask if you can have one. Someone looks at you with what might be pity or else amusement that you even asked first. But you were raised right, you have some manners. Some monsters have manners. You mop up your chest and neck, drying the fabric of your gear.

And then more waiting. You don't have any lines to memorize but you watch a few others practicing, Some people you know from NXT and some you know only by reputation.

Picture yourself watching them shyly and not entering the conversation, waiting and waiting for an opportunity to say something. It doesn't come. You leave.

You find yourself turning a corner and entering the catering area, steamed green beans in metal trays with burning cans of Sterno keeping everything hot. Brisket. Baby carrots. Diet Mountain Dew. Something for everyone, really. You don't want to barf on your opponent so you decide to come back later.

Not many people here right now, you see as you scan the tables. Some production staff eating pretzels and poring over a checklist printed on yellow paper. They're using yellow highlighters. It seems weird but, you don't know enough to question it. Maybe it's something to do with the lighting.

A blonde head is tilted forward looking closely at something you can't see--Charlotte Flair. You frown and approach.

“Hey,” you say nonchalantly. You pull out a chair at her table and lower yourself gently, falling into old habits of trying not to take up space. Monsters take up space. You put your elbows on the table.

She looks up.”Oh hey.” She is holding something soft and blue, yarn and wooden needles.”Welcome to the dance. You ready?”

“No,” you say, shaking your head.”Yes. No.” You sigh. “I’m still learning how to be a monster.”

“Just takes practice,” Charlotte says.

“Are you knitting?”

She nods.

“What is it?”

Charlotte inclines her head to a creased pile of print-outs on the table. You pick it up. It's twenty pages of charts and symbols and abbreviations attached to a couple of pictures of a giant shawl, a huge circle full of spiraling petals and intricate lace curlicues and webs.

“This looks complicated.”

“It is complicated. Do you knit?"

You say: “Yeah. A little. My mom taught me when I was a kid."

"Did you ever read Stitch N Bitch?" Charlotte asks you.

You nod, remembering something that was popular back at Palomar, back when you were a student.

"I taught myself in college," Charlotte goes on. "Killed a lot of time between places. This son of a bitch is going to kill a hell of a lot of time," she says with satisfaction. "It's seventy inches in diameter. Thousands of stitches."

Your eyes get a little wide. But Charlotte looks so satisfied, in her own world with the rhythm of the wooden needles slipping against each other and clicking very softly. The yarn is a mottled sapphire, lighter and darker in some areas. It spools out of the center of the ball as she goes, pulling gently.

“So it’s a circle?” You ask.

“Yeah,” Charlotte says. “It keeps doubling in size. See?” She holds up the crinkled blob attached to her needles and you see three concentric circles made of holes, between layers of pattern.

“Cool,” You say. “Um, this might be a dumb question, but how do you wear a circle?”

She freezes and looks you in the eye. And then she laughs. “I have no idea,” she says.

“Do you fold it in half? Do you put it over your head like a cape?”

“I could probably pull that off,” Charlotte says, giving her hair a toss.

“So you’re making it for yourself?” You ask.

Charlotte sighs. “I think so. Knitting for other people is a harder thing. There’s a curse.”

You frown. You heard wrestlers were superstitious. This could be a thing. “So you can curse someone with your knitting too?”

“Probably.” A sly smile creeps across Charlotte’s face. “But the curse is that if you make a sweater for your boyfriend, you’ll break up. Because sweaters are a ton of work, and people who don’t knit don’t appreciate that, a lot of the time.”

“Well,” you say. “I knit.”

“Are you asking me for a sweater?” Charlotte asks.

It’s not cold in the catering area but you shiver and remember you have to go beat up a chump in a few minutes. “Not sure I’d wear it.”

“Fair enough,” Charlotte says.

You eye the gleaming championship sitting on a chair next to her. She catches you looking.

“One thing at a time,” she says. “Look. No matter the stakes, one match is one match. You don’t make a career on one match. And you don’t make a match out of one move. Move chained to move, match after match. Title after title.” She gestures at you with her knitting. “One stitch won’t do you any good unless you keep going.”

You nod. “Is that a nice way of telling me not to be jealous?”

She laughs. “Your match is starting soon,” she says. “Pick her up and drop her. And then do it again. Everything else will follow.”

You look back down at her hands and the blue yarn flying between them.

“Thanks,” you say, and you imagine the future spread out before you like a shining, speeding thread. It’s time for your debut. You might even be ready.

 

 


End file.
